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A Long History of Rhosyfelin:

A Geomorphological Perspective (3rd version)


Brian John
If you type "Rhosyfelin" into Google, you will find a good many entries, including many from my
blog called Stonehenge and the Ice Age (1). For better or worse, the site at Craig Rhosyfelin, not
far from Brynberian, has become a key archaeological site -- which is rather interesting, given that
there is not much archaeology there.

Map and satellite image from the Wheres the Path? website. The rocky spur is located just to the
east of the very tight bend in the road. The initial dig site (2011) was between the two prominent
mayflower trees and the rocky ridge. In dig seasons 2012, 2013 and 2014 the excavations were
extended beyond the tip of the spur and all the way to the head of the little valley, to the SW. The
scrub clearance and excavations now extend over a distance of c 80m.
Its new-found fame, of course, lies in the fact that some of the "debitage" at Stonehenge has been
traced back to this particular rather insignificant rocky spur in the valley of the Brynberian River, a
tributary of the Afon Nyfer. The link has been featured in a number of papers by Rob Ixer and
Richard Bevins (2) -- all discussed at length in my blog. More to the point, for the past four seasons
there have been extensive archaeological digs on the site, with Mike Parker Pearson, Josh Pollard
and Colin Richards all involved, along with a host of other amateur and professional archaeologists
who are all apparently sold on the idea that this is the first proper "bluestone quarry" ever to be
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systematically investigated. That is the hypothesis, as enunciated in some detail by Prof MPP in his
2012 Stonehenge book (3). To me, it looks like a ruling hypothesis, because it has simply been
accepted as correct, and has not been tested through independent scrutiny. There have been no
published survey reports or peer-reviewed papers thus far -- and this is interesting, given that this
project started in 2011, four years ago.
Why this tardiness? This may be down to the strict veto exercised by the National Geographic
Society, which seems to be financing the dig, and which (according to MPP in a talk in
Brynberian) does not allow anything to be published without its consent. Presumably it wants a
"world exclusive" in the pages of the National Geographic Magazine. Im inclined not to believe
that -- after all, MPP has revealed many of the details of the dig in his book, and that presumably
was published with a nod from the publishers of the magazine. Also, if anything spectacular really
had been found, nobody would have been able to restrain MPP or any of the others involved from
going public. There would have been banner headlines and excited press conferences. No -- it is

The 2011 excavation at Rhosyfelin, showing the abandoned orthostat of foliated rhyolite which
has come from the adjacent rocky spur. Note the apparent stratification in the exposed sediments. If
any organic material from any of these sediment beds should yield a radiocarbon date greater than
5,000 years BP, that would invalidate the quarry hypothesis.
much more likely that nothing very interesting has been unearthed thus far; and that is why the
dig is now about to enter its fifth season. The team members are determined to find the Holy Grail
-- incontrovertible evidence of quarrying and the removal of stones from this site all the way to
Stonehenge. If at first you don't succeed.........
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We don't know what dating techniques have been used on samples from the site. There are organic
materials in some of the exposed layers in the stratigraphy, and we know that radiocarbon dating
has been used. But other dating techniques -- including cosmogenic or OSL dating -- may also have
been appropriate with a view to working out the sequence of sedimentation. Why have no
radiocarbon dates been published? Well, some bloggers suspect a deep conspiracy on this front -and I have to agree with them that this lack of publication probably means that the sequence of
events which is emerging is not particularly favourable to the "bluestone quarry" hypothesis. After
all, if any date greater than 5,000 yrs BP is given to material stratigraphically above the base of the
big "recumbent orthostat" which has appeared in all the photos, that would knock the whole
hypothesis for six. I might even speculate that dates considerably in excess of 5,000 yrs BP -placing them in the Mesolithic or Palaeolithic -- have been found already. No doubt all will be
revealed in due course. We are promised a big paper in the autumn of 2015.
I have never been invited to have a look at the dig, and my one appointment with members of the
team was a grave disappointment since they failed to turn up at the agreed time at Rhosyfelin, so
my impressions are based on quick visits in the company of others and on a lack of systematic
fieldwork. However, I have a good photographic record of the site, and I have listened intently
to the presentations given to the general public by MPP and his colleagues. So here is my
interpretation of the landscape history of the site. Let's call it a Long History of Rhosyfelin -- since
the timescale is indeed a long one, measured in millions of years. In my view this is a
Pleistocene site, not a Neolithic one.

THE SEQUENCE OF KEY EVENTS


This, I think, is the history of what has happened to the landscape and landforms at Rhosyfelin. It
is intended for use as a working hypothesis, subject to correction and improvement -- and maybe
even to falsification, according to the precepts of Karl Popper! If it needs to be dumped in the
future, so be it...... and in the meantime, I will welcome comments and corrections.
1. Phase One. Early Days
There was a long period of landscape evolution prior to the Ice Age, during which the main features
of upland and lowland were created. The upland ridge of Mynydd Preseli is all that is left of a
much more extensive mountainous landscape. We can assume that there were once spectacular
alpine peaks here, created during the Caledonian mountain-building episode around 450 million
years ago, and then maybe influenced also by the Hercynian upheavals of 350 million years ago.
(These are very rough dates -- in reality those episodes were prolonged and complex.) There was
much volcanic activity in connection with these upheavals; the Fishguard Volcanic Series of igneous
rocks was emplaced around 450 million years ago, within and on top of old sea-floor sediments
which now outcrop at the ground surface across much of North Pembrokeshire (4). You can see
traces of the mountain-building episodes in the tight folds, faults and shattered rock zones in the
cliffs at Ceibwr, Newport and many other locations between Pen Caer and Cardigan. Many of
these rocks in the uplands have been eroded away -- maybe because of the frequency of volcanic
ashes and flaky rhyolites mixed in with mudstones, shales and thin-bedded sandstones. In a popular
terminology, these would be called "soft" rocks. In contrast, the big intrusions of dolerite in the
Preseli Hills have been much more resistant to erosion, explaining the rolling upland landscape with
a scatter of dolerite (and some rhyolite) tors.
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One of the tumbledown tors of Carn Meini (Carn Menyn). Here the bedrock is spotted dolerite. It has
long been assumed that this locality was the main source of the bluestones used at Stonehenge. The
assumption has now been shown by geologists to be incorrect.
Why are the tors there? Conventionally, the explanation is that the tors survive because they are
made of resistant rocks which are not broken by tight jointing and fractures, whereas the heavily
fractured and "softer" rocks around them have been attacked by chemical and physical weathering
processes on a more substantial scale. These tors (like Carn Meini, Carn Alw, Carn Bica and Carn
Arthur) have probably been present as features in the landscape for at least 10 million years, even
though individual rock surfaces on them might be dated as much younger than that -- as seen in the
recent paper on the Dartmoor tors (5) where individual slabs seem only to have been exposed to
cosmogenic bombardment for between 30,000 and 50,000 years.) We always need to bear in mind
that while a tor is being eroded by frost processes and gravitational settling -- and by other processes
too -- the surrounding landscape is also being eroded or lowered at a rate that may be equal, or
maybe faster and maybe slower!
We should bear in mind that tors at the end of the "preglacial" period were actually quite widespread
across North Pembrokeshire. There were tors on the uplands of Preseli, as mentioned above. But
they also occurred on Carningli and Dinas Mountain, at Carnedd Meibion Owen and in Tycanol
Wood, and in various locations in the Newport-Nevern area. There were also tors further to the
west, on the Pencaer Peninsula, on the St David's Peninsula, and at Poll Carn (Lion Rock) and
Maiden Castle at the northern end of Trefgarn Gorge in central Pembrokeshire. (We need to be
careful about the interpretation of some of these features, because some seem to have been
formed originally as islands or skerries when relative sea-level was falling from over 100m to c30m
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above its present level. They are called "monadnocks" by geomorphologists. So marine
processes, as well as chemical and other physical weathering processes, have been involved in their
creation.)
2. Phase Two. Getting Colder

At the beginning of the Pleistocene or Quaternary Ice Age, around 10 million years ago, the overall
distribution of upland and lowland in North Pembrokeshire, and the approximate position of the
coastline, were already determined (6). So in addition to the main features of Mynydd Preseli we
can be reasonably sure that there was a shallow depression on the northern flank of the mountain,
with many small streams draining down into the Nevern Valley. The Brynberian valley would have
been a part of this drainage pattern. Were the deep river gorges at Rhosyfelin and Felin y Gigfran
present at the time? Probably not, since the whole land surface was probably higher. However, we
cannot rule out episodes of river downcutting and gorge development during phases of increased
precipitation and runoff, or during periods of low relative sea-level. (Remarkably little is
known about climate and landscape history during this period.) Were the tors at Carnedd Meibion
Owen and Rhosyfelin present at the time? Probably they were -- and maybe they were substantially
larger and more prominent than those which we see today.
3. Phase Three. Ice here and there -- but mostly there
In the period between 10 million yrs BP and 2.5 million yrs BP the climate cooled substantially, and
in some parts of the Northern Hemisphere -- in high latitudes and at high altitudes -- there must
have been intermittent glacial episodes, as shown in the deep-sea and ice sheet records (7). It is
doubtful that glacial ice will have affected West Wales and the South of England at this time -- so
probably there will have been a number of periglacial episodes some of which might have lasted for
hundreds of thousands of years. During these episodes frost shattering and scree development will
have occurred in some localities, and the landform details on tors and steep slopes might have been
modified. Generally, debris accumulation in the lower parts of the landscape (valleys and
depressions) will have occurred -- but if at certain stages there were periods of rapid snowmelt or
episodes of high rainfall, floods might have deepened valleys -- and it is possible that the Brynberian
river gorge, for example, might have begun to form at this time. Also, if some of these early glacial
episodes were large enough, it is possible that global sea-levels might have dropped to -30m or more,
leading to the inevitable incision of rock valleys well beneath present sea-level. The rock floor of
Milford Haven and all the other coastal valleys of Pembrokeshire lies well beneath present sealevel -- but we do not yet know whether this is because of many different episodes of deep
downcutting or because of just one or two, later in the Pleistocene (8).
4. Phase Four. Glaciation proper
Around 2.5 million years ago, the first well-established glacial episode involving big ice sheets
affected the land masses of Western and Northern Europe. Some of the glacial deposits on the
continental shelf seem to date from this time, but the first episode to provide investigators with
good quality stratigraphic data was the Anglian glaciation, around 450,000 years ago. That was the
most intense and most prolonged glacial episode of the Pleistocene, at least in Europe. There was a
very large British - Irish Ice Sheet, covering most of Ireland, Scotland, Wales and England (9). So
much of the Planet's water was locked into the big ice sheets that sea-level dropped to at least
-120m, meaning that the ice streams and glaciers were for the most part land-based, flowing across
vast expanses of land that are now submerged beneath the sea. That includes the floor of the North
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Sea, the Irish Sea, Cardigan Bay, St George's


Channel and the Celtic Sea.
These western areas bounded by Ireland in the
west and Great Britain to the east were occupied
by the Irish Sea Glacier, the largest and most
powerful of all the ice streams to have affected
the British Isles (9).
As realised more than a century ago by
geologists like Geikie and Jehu, this glacier
received most of its sustenance from the
accumulation areas on Ireland, NW England
and Scotland, and flowed broadly southwards
Global glacial and interglacial oscillations over towards Pembrokeshire before expanding into a
great piedmont lobe which flowed SW, S, SE
the past million years. The glacial phases shown
did not all affect SW Britain or leave clear traces. and even E. The glacier also received ice
flowing from the Welsh Ice Cap into Cardigan
Bay -- and it is a fair assumption that the
surface of the glacier in St George's Channel must have been at around 2000m, sufficient to drive
flowing ice across Preseli and the whole of Pembrokeshire, and up the Bristol Channel towards
the Mendips and the Somerset coast. There will also have been supplements to the glacier from
valley glaciers flowing broadly southwards across South Wales, from the uplands of the Brecon
Beacons and the South Wales Coalfield. That "boost" might well have been critical in maintaining
the momentum of the Irish Sea Glacier,
which was by now more than 600 km away
from its primary source areas.
What was the maximum southern extent of
this glacier? Well, from the glacial traces
in the landscape and from the glacial deposits
which we know about in southern England,
we can be quite sure that the ice affected
Somerset, Devon and Cornwall. Were the
uplands of the Mendips, Exmoor, Dartmoor
and Bodmin Moor covered at this time by
local ice caps or by the big Irish Sea Glacier?
Almost certainly they were glaciated, since we
One of the British-Irish ice sheet models
prepared by Hubbard et al, 2008.
Although this model was created for the
Devensian glacial episode, it may be a good
indicator of the maximum extent of ice during
the Anglian glaciation. Note that
Cornwall, Devon, and Somerset are largely
ice-covered, and that much of Wiltshire is
also submerged beneath ice.
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know that in the Devensian glacial episode (peaking around 20,000 years ago) there was an ice cap
on Dartmoor, and an ice edge on the Scilly Isles. The Anglian was a much more intense and
extensive glaciation than the Devensian, and unless there were unexplained glaciological
differences between the Anglian and Devensian glaciers -- expressed as different bed
conditions, rates of ice flow and surface profiles -- it is reasonable to assume that the ice
actually reached Salisbury Plain. That assumption is not yet supported by unequivocal
stratigraphic evidence, but as discussed many times on the Stonehenge and the Ice Age blog,
there are traces of glacier ice having affected the Somerset Levels, the Mendips, and the Bath area -and if we accept (as I do) that the Stonehenge bluestones and other strange stones found on
Salisbury Plain are extremely old glacial erratics, the matter is more or less settled. On the
principle of Occam's Razor, we do not need any other explanation relating to the transport of the
bluestones.
What about Rhosyfelin? I suggest that when the Anglian ice started to impinge upon the coastal
strip of North Pembrokeshire, there was a substantial tor or craggy outcrop at Rhosyfelin, standing
prominently above an undulating fluvial landscape which had already been affected to some degree
by a prolonged period of periglacial conditions. That is the way it is, prior to all big glacial
episodes. We cannot know whether the tor was massive and coherent, or just a pile of tumbledown
debris. At any rate, when the Irish Sea Glacier had taken possession of the northern slopes of
Preseli and started to flow rapidly across this landscape, conditions were perfect for shearing to
occur within the ice (10), for
the entrainment of bedrock
blocks up into the body of the
glacier, and for transport
within the glacier away
towards the SE and E.
Many of the other tors on
the northern flank and summit
of Preseli were similarly
affected, while areas on the
southern flank were affected
to a much lesser extent, as
explained in other posts on
my blog.
It may be that
hundreds or thousands of
tonnes of rock were removed
from the Rhosyfelin rhyolitic
outcrop in this way. Because
the rock is fissile and flaky,
and broken up by abundant
fissures or joints, the chances
of big slabs or blocks of this
rhyolite being transported all
A mechanism for the entrainment of blocks and other debris from the way to Salisbury Plain
locations on the northern flank of Preseli during the waxing
without further damage were
phase of the Anglian Glaciation. This phase may not have lasted not great -- but not impossible.
for very long; at the peak of the glacial episode the landscape at
The bulk of transported
Rhosyfelin might have been protected from glacial erosional
material must have been in the
form of boulders and cobbles
processes.
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maybe less than 1m in diameter. Most of it will have been dissipated or ground up in downstream
glacial deposits, but some slabs and "orthostats" in protected locations within the ice mass could
have been transported for 300km or more without further damage, to be melted out or dumped in
due course at the ice edge. I have speculated on my blog that the "entrainment episode" at
Rhosyfelin might have been quite short-lived (maybe lasting for just a few decades or centuries) and
that for the rest of the glacial episode the site was protected by immobile or very sluggish coldbased ice. (As a general rule, warm-based glaciers with their bases at or near the pressure melting
point can flow fast and erode effectively, whereas cold-based glaciers tend to be frozen to their beds
or to slide very slowly, making them incapable of much "work" in changing the form of the land
surface.)
At the end of the Anglian glacial episode, it's reasonable to suppose that the Irish Sea Glacier
wasted catastrophically. The meltwater channel complex of the Gwaun-Jordanston area was
probably formed at this time (10), with huge volumes of meltwater escaping southwards across any
low cols that were available, or else being forced to flow south-westwards and then southwards
deep beneath the wasting ice surface or actually along the ice edge. Initially, much of the meltwater
was flowing subglacially under high pressure, meaning that occasionally it was actually flowing
uphill (11). The valleys connected to Cwm Gwaun are classics of their kind, frequently cited in text
books and recognized in the SSSI citations which guarantee a degree of extra landscape protection
within the Pembrokeshire Coast National Park. Was there a glacial lake impounded against the
northern face of Preseli at this time? It's possible, but as yet we do not have stratigraphic evidence
which can be brought to bear. But the gorge at Rhosyfelin may well have had its origins at this
time, as great volumes of meltwater flowed northwards towards the lower land of Cardigan Bay
at a time of chaotic ice wastage -- such as we see on the margins of some Icelandic and
Greenland glaciers today.
5. Phase Five. Many Missing Millennia
Following the Anglian Glaciation, over the course of more than 350,000 years, there were several
glacial and interglacial cycles, and it is possible that glacier ice might have affected Rhosyfelin
again,on more than one occasion. This ice might have come from the north in the form of another
Irish Sea Glacier, or it might have come from a small Preseli ice cap, formed as a result of localised
extreme cold and high snowfall. We really have no local evidence which we can -- at this stage -interpret sensibly. But during this long period there may well have been other climatic episodes at
least as warm as the present interglacial, and other very prolonged episodes of periglacial conditions
with or without continuous permafrost. Over a period as long as this, it is inevitable that Craig
Rhosyfelin will have undergone further substantial change, involving the ongoing reduction of
the rocky tor and the accumulation of debris around its foot and in the river valley adjacent to it.
What about the details of the river valley? They are actually quite complicated here -- and
particularly notable are the subsidiary valleys or gullies on either side of the craggy ridge which we
see today. They suggest that water has at some stage (or stages) flowed down from the valley
side into the gorge, maybe excavating out zones of weakness coinciding with faulted or brecciated
zones, or maybe coinciding with the junctions between the rhyolites and the adjacent sedimentary
rocks.
6. Phase Six. The Last Interglacial
Thus far, we have no evidence of either the climate or the process of sedimentation at Rhosyfelin
for the period around 100,000 - 70,000 yrs BP. However, there are abundant signs on the coast that
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at some stage during this interglacial (called the Ipswichian) relative sea-level was higher than it is
today, by at least a couple of metres. There are not only raised beach platforms cut across bedrock in
many coastal locations, but also raised beach deposits of rounded cobbles, sand and gravels -sometimes cemented into a hard conglomerate by calcium carbonate and sometimes stained heavily
with iron and manganese oxides. The climate was warmer than it is today, with a landscape just as
richly clothed with vegetation (12). It may be that Mynydd Preseli would have been quite heavily
wooded, in spite of the high exposure and the location in the far west of Wales.
Soil development during the interglacial would have been much more prolonged than that of the
present interglacial -- so soil horizons maybe 2m thick would have been commonplace. But in
North Pembrokeshire, the chances of any such soil horizons surviving the events of the following
Devensian are very slim indeed.
7. Phase Seven. The Devensian Glacial Episode

This episode is conventionally considered to have started around 70,000 years ago and to have run
until about 10,000 years ago (13). Now we are getting into the period which we might expect to be
represented in the sedimentary sequence at Rhosyfelin. Prior to the arrival of the Devensian ice in
this area, there was a long period (maybe 50,000 years) of oscillating periglacial climate. For parts
of this period there was continuous permafrost, as indicated by occasional traces of patterned ground
including fossil ice wedges and cryoturbation features. When at last the ice of the Irish Sea Glacier
did arrive in North Pembrokeshire it created an effective ice dam along the coastline, holding
up the drainage of north-flowing rivers and streams on the northern flanks of Mynydd Preseli
and leading to the creation of ice-dammed lakes in the Teifi Valley (now well documented in a
sequence of laminated lake sediments more than 50m thick in places) and maybe in other valleys as
well (14). Various researchers have suggested a series of glacial lake overflows across low-lying
cols, leading to the creation of "overflow channels" or spillways -- but the precise sequence of events
is still a matter for debate, and much
more evidence of glacial lake
sediments is needed before the true
story can be told. On my blog site
we have had some debate on the
question of whether there was a
"Glacial Lake Brynberian". If it ever
did exist, then the site of Craig
Rhosyfelin might well have been
submerged beneath the waters.
And if there are laminated or
varved lake clays to be found
anywhere, then they might be found
on the floor of the valley adjacent
to the site being excavated by Prof
Mike Parker Pearson and his team.
A conservative assessment of the Devensian ice edge in
North Pembrokeshire, based on the most recent
I am now convinced that the Irish
Geological Survey map. Evidence is accumulating to
Sea Glacier pushed further south
show that the ice of the Irish Sea Glacier was more
than Rhosyfelin and pressed against
extensive than this, probably flowing across the whole
the northern hillslope of Preseli. I
of the Carningli upland and maybe across the eastern
end of the Preseli ridge as well.
am also convinced that the ice
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flowed across Carningli, maybe even covering the highest crags, and across Tycanol Wood and the
tors of Carnedd Meibion Owen. There are fresh-looking glaciated slabs in many locations, and I
think it possible that the ice might even have inundated the highest tors including Carn Meini.
More work needs to be done on this, and maybe we will need cosmogenic dating to be employed to
answer the question of maximum Devensian ice extent. There may have been several pulses or ice
advances within a short period, and as evidence for this I would cite the recently discovered
morainic accumulations at Gernos Fawr, Cilgwyn and Pont Ceunant.
So what traces of the Devensian glaciation might we expect to find at Rhosyfelin? Well, one thing
we know from a long study of the coastal exposures of Ice Age deposits around the Pembrokeshire
coast is that the glacial episode was neither long enough in duration not intense enough to erode
away all of the older sediments overriden by the glacier. The "lower head" accumulations of frostshattered and pseudo-bedded slope deposits may have been partly removed, but plenty of them still
exist. So we can assume that they remained deeply frozen and reasonably resistant to erosion by the
glacier that came in from the north and north-west -- or maybe at some stage from the north-east as
well. We can discount the effects of the short-lived Preseli ice cap which might have occupied the
highest parts of Preseli at some stage. That would have been cold-based, thin and almost stagnant,
with a very limited capacity for affecting landscape change.
If the ice was capable of streaming across bedrock surfaces and polishing or moulding them, it must
also have been capable of some destruction of upstanding craggy outcrops such as that of Craig
Rhosyfelin.
So delicate crags might have been demolished, rubble might have been moved
and maybe dragged away to other locations further south, and a great deal of debris from preexisting scree banks might well have been incorporated into the basal ice material derived from
country already overridden.
We might expect that in particularly favourable locations within the valleys of Afon Nyfer and Afon
Brynberian, we might find a sequence of periglacial deposits (possibly with lake deposits
above them), and with glacial deposits higher still in the sequence. These deposits will be
sedimentologically quite distinct from one another -- and will thus be easy to recognize.
From what I have seen thus far of the excavations at Rhosyfelin, I suspect that at the end of the
2012 digging season the archaeologists reached the top of a till layer which incorporates much local
material derived from the immediate vicinity. In this regard it will have been very similar to the till
found all over the land surface of the Newport - Nevern area. Where rhyolites are outcropping,
there are rhyolite boulders in the till; where dolerites are outcropping, the boulders and coarse
debris are of dolerite, set in a matrix of debris largely derived from soft and flaky Ordovician shales
and slates.
Back to the details for Rhosyfelin. It seems to me that on the exposed rock face we have a series of
glaciated (in places ice moulded) slabs coinciding with a series of closely-spaced fracture planes -maybe along a fault line. The broken debris piled up along the base of this face is mostly angular
or sharp-edged, but it includes slabs and stones which have been smoothed by erosion, with many
sharp edges and corners rounded off. That seems to suggest glacial action or else a short-lived
episode of fluvio-glacial activity, with torrents of meltwater flowing down the gully and into the
river valley proper. We now know that there are abundant fluvioglacial deposits in the stratigraphic
sequence, downslope from the initial excavation site and extending out into the flood plain of the
Brynberian River. It is now apparent that the "2012 surface" exposed by the archaeologists
coincides with the top of a layer of mixed rubble and till, with signs of iron staining and weathering.
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This iron pan or hard pan is common throughout the Preseli uplands area, and the top of it has
no archaeological significance. The till exposed at Rhosyfelin appears to be clay-rich, like many of
the other tills in North Pembrokeshire. To me, the colouring indicates a period of sub-arial
exposure prior to the accumulation of relatively fine-grained slope deposits on top of the
boulder litter. On the other hand, iron-staining and weathering can occur in the top 50cm of a
clay-rich till layer even when it is buried beneath other sediments which permit easy water
percolation. (This can be seen in the cliff section at Abermawr.)
In the 2013 and 2014 digging seasons the archaeologists excavated well into this till layer and
revealed the presence of many sub-rounded and sub-angular stones and boulders made of rhyolite,
dolerite and other exotic stone types. Its thickness is variable, as one would expect. Striae are
difficult to pick up on these rock types, but O r d o v i c i a n s h a l e p e b b l e s a r e s t r i a t e d , a n d
I found one broken bedrock slab with clear crescentic gouges on its surface, suggesting heavy ice
movement across this site.
The foxy red hardpan here
coinciding with the top of the
Rhosyfelin till layer. Note the
incorporated erratics of dolerite
and other stone types. The erratics
are generally smoothed and have
their edges rounded off by ice
action.

The Rhosyfelin scree / rubble layer


which has been interpreted as
quarrying rubble by Professor
MPP and his colleagues (for
reasons best known to themselves)
rests against the base of the rock
face. When did this scree start to
accumulate, and when did
accumulation come to an end? As
indicated above, it is possible that
some of the broken debris has been
in position since the end of the
Anglian glacial episode around
450,000 years ago, when the Irish
Other erratic boulders and
stones extracted from the dig
during September 2013. These
are mixed here with slabs of local
rhyolite removed from the dig
site.
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Sea glacier disintegrated. If we bring our understanding of glacial episodes to bear, we may assume
that there were periglacial episodes which followed the melting of the glacier ice, leading to the
breakdown of glacially steepened slopes and the accumulation of scree and other slope deposits. In
an area like this, subject to compressive ice flow, pressure release mechanisms must have come into
play. There may have been no further glacial action in this area until the Devensian; there was at
least one other glacial phase (referred to as the Wolstonian or Saalian glaciation in other parts of the

Fist-sized pebble of grey Ordovician shale,


found in the till layer. Both facets and
striations are clearly visible.

Crescentic gouges on a slab of foliated rhyolite,


suggesting that this slab has been subjected to
intense pressure by thick over-riding ice.

world) but if the Irish Sea Glacier of that time did not extend this far south, then there would
have been a prolonged period of cold or periglacial conditions (maybe lasting for 50,000 years
or more) during which further breakdown of the Rhosyfelin crags might have occurred. Whether
the rock debris fell from above the rock face as we see it today, or from the face itself, we
cannot tell on the basis of the current evidence.
When the Devensian ice arrived there must have been a great deal of debris around the Rhosyfelin
"spur" -- some of it fresh and some of it having been in place for maybe hundreds of thousands of
years. One would expect the oldest material on the site to be stained with iron and manganese
oxide.
As the ice flowed across the site, some material was overridden in a relatively
undisturbed state, some incorporated into the basal layers of ice and transported away, and some
mixed up with basal till and erratics transported from the land surface to the north of the site.
8. Phase Eight. The Late-Glacial
Probably this site was clear of glacier ice by 18,000 yrs BP. After that, for maybe 6,000 years, the
climate remained cold as the great ice sheets gradually wasted away further to the north. We know
from the stratigraphic evidence in other parts of Pembrokeshire that there was some redistribution
of glacial and other old deposits by solifiuxion and slope washing processes, but there were no thick
accumulations of "head" as there were in the earlier part of the Devensian (14). But in the period
13,000 yrs BP to 10,000 yrs BP there was a strange "triple event" referred to as the "Late Gacial"
and characterised as a cold phase (Zone 1 or Older Dryas), a warmer interlude (Zone 2 or Allerod)
and another cold phase (Zone 3 or Younger Dryas). There is still much debate about whether these
three episodes are recognizable across the world, or whether they were localised within NW Europe
for reasons that are not yet apparent (15). At any rate, they do seem to appear in the Pembrokeshire
12

record from other Pleistocene sites, and we can surmise that there were further rockfalls onto the
Devensian till surface at Rhosyfelin during the Older Dryas and Younger Dryas, accompanied by
solifluxion of broken rock materials from the hillslope on the other side of the gully.
The lowest layer above the till surface at Rhosyfelin is a dark-coloured and fine-grained bed up to
30 cms thick, with many stony and gravelly inclusions and "streaky" bands which appear to be
rich in organic material. This might be a l a c u s tr ine deposit accumulated during a glacial
wastage phase, either in a localised small lake within the bounds of the valley (the most likely
explanation) or in a more extensive "Glacial Lake Brynberian" impounded between a retreating ice
edge and the northern slope of Mynydd Preseli. There is at least one small feature that looks
like a fault; and less than a metre away there is something that looks like a small fossil ice wedge
indicative of permafrost. In places there are traces of what appear to be involutions or
cryoturbation features; they need close examination, for they may also have originated as "load in g
di storti o n s " or injection features resulting from the compression and disturbance of saturated
sediments by materials dumped on top of them. This dark-coloured layer has a sharp upper
surface, and above it is a brown stony layer full of angular broken debris. Maybe this is frostshattered material, and maybe not; exposed crags and even rocky outcrops on hillsides break down
in this way, with angular fragments being worked from the eroding face by a wide range of
processes including root expansion, pressure release, rockfalls and small landslides in periods
of exceptional rainfall.
9. Phase Nine. The Holocene Interglacial
When the Younger Dryas ended quite abruptly, the last small glaciers to have survived in the
uplands of Britain all disappeared. The climate warmed rapidly, and from this point on, for the last
10,000 years or so, the dominant
processes on most slopes
(including those at Rhosyfelin)
have been related to solifluxion
under a temperate climatic
regime.
In the exposures on
the flanks of the archaeological
dig we can see what appear to
be up to six distinct layers -some with a darker colouring
reminiscent of organic-rich soil
layers, and others with a buff or
foxy brown colour. The darker
layers seem to have a greater
proportion of silts and clays in
them, and the brown layers have
more in the sand and gravel
fractions.
But the layers are
Six distinct layers exposed during the 2012 dig. The three
discontinuous, which means that
darker coloured layers might incorporate organic materials. In we should perhaps refer to
the lower dark layer (which has been sampled) there seem to be "pseudo-bedding" rather than
permafrost structures including involutions, a small fault and bedding.
a fossil ice wedge.
What is the climatic significance
13

of these "layers"? Well, we know that there were climatic oscillations on a small scale during the
British Holocene, although correlations across the rest of Western Europe are difficult. These
episodes are referred to as the Pre-Boreal, Boreal, Atlantic (also referred to as the "Climatic
Optimum"), Sub Boreal and Sub Atlantic periods. The warmest episode (Hypsithermal) seems
to have been around 8,000 to 6,000 years BP, and after that, in the episode sometimes referred to
as the "Neoglacial" by glaciologists, there were a number of short episodes cold enough for glacier
advances in the uplands of the Alps, Norway and Iceland. Around 5,000 years BP, when the
earliest phases of Stonehenge were under construction, the climate seems to have been cool and
rather wet, but with a slow reduction in rainfall totals over 2,000 years or so.
It may well be that when radiocarbon and other dating has been completed for the layers exposed in
the Rhosyfelin digging seasons of 2011-2014, a reasonably accurate timescale may be applied to the
six (or more!) "layers" -- but for the time being we simply have to say that within the last 10,000
years slope deposits up to 2m thick have accumulated on top of the broken rock debris, as the gullies
on the flank of the rhyolite ridge have been gradually filled with the products of ongoing erosion
and accumulation. Personally, I would not be too surprised if these sediments were to be found
to contain Mesolithic flint flakes or microliths made from the Rhosyfelin rhyolite raw materials. In
exceptionally wet periods there may even have been mudflows and slope collapses leading to the
redistribution of soil and rock debris -- helping to explain why some apparent "layers" are
discontinuous. Not all the rock debris was covered with later solifluxion or slope deposits; close to
the rock face many blocks were visible sticking up through the ground surface, or were covered by
thick vegetation but not soil. The highest part of the "abandoned orthostat" was only about 20 cm
beneath the ground surface when found by the 2011 excavation team.
10. Phase Ten. Human Interference?
Leaving aside for the moment the assumption that all of the rock debris at Rhosyfelin is "quarrying
debris" resulting from Neolithic stone extraction activities, the archaeologists have mentioned several
features that supposedly demonstrate human interference in the arrangement of stones and
superficial deposits:
(a) At least two rounded stones referred to as hammerstones, supposedly used for the shaping of
rhyolite orthostats. According to Professor MPP, these stones have percussion fractures and other
damage on their surfaces, showing that they have been used for striking against softer rock surfaces
so as to remove projections or irregularities. Apparently these "hammerstones" have been found
among the broken rhyolite rock debris low in the sequence described above. I have not examined
them, and so I reserve judgment on whether any surface markings are natural or man-made. (My
guess is that they are most likely to be fractures, scratches and chatter-marks typical of erratic stones
dragged along on the bed of a glacier -- and indeed there are hundreds of other rounded and
sub-rounded erratics as well, including at least two made of quartz, scattered in the rhyolite rock
debris, till and fluvioglacial sediments ldescribed in my blog.)
(b) The so-called "rhyolite orthostat" lying some 5m from the rock face, with its upper surface just
20 cm beneath the ground surface at the onset of excavation. This elongated slab has caused great
excitement, and has been much photographed as "the bluestone which was left behind" by the
Neolithic quarrymen. Its dimensions, according to the archaeologists, make it a good candidate for
recognition as an ideal Stonehenge bluestone; and they are also quite convinced that it has been
shaped. They also argue that it is too far from the rock face to have reached its final resting place
naturally. On the other hand, I am not the only observer to have suggested that it looks entirely
14

natural, and that its position is not at all exceptional, lying as it does within the "apron" of broken
rock debris beneath the Rhosyfelin crags. It lies on top of other smaller blocks, suggesting that it
was emplaced by a more recent rockfall from high up on the adjacent crag. I can see no evidence
on the stone of any working with hammerstones or other tools. It is also, at a weight of about 8
tonnes, far too large to be a candidate Stonehenge bluestone. Finally, it is very badly fractured,
with one serious fracture running across its upper face. It is obvious that even if it is deemed to be a
monolith, it would never survive a journey down to the Rhosyfelin river bank, let alone an epic
voyage to Stonehenge.
(c) A number of long thin stones with "worn surfaces" which according to Prof MPP have been used
as "railway tracks" along which the "orthostat" has been dragged away from the rock face. He says
that some of these elongated stones are still positioned beneath the orthostat, demonstrating that the
Neolithic quarrymen were in the process of dragging the stone even further away from the face when
the project -- for some reason or other -- was suddenly abandoned. The diggers of 2012 also found
fragments of "railway track" stones which had supposedly been broken during the dragging of the
"orthostat" across them; and some of these bits were joined together again on the grass for all to

Two photos showing the abandoned orthostat and the rock face at Rhosyfelin. The one on the left is
from 2011 and the one on the right is from 2012. We can see that some of the fallen rock debris is
deeply covered by fine-grained slope deposits and some broken blocks are hardly covered at all -- with
some sharp edges projecting through the ground surface.
admire. I am not alone in considering all of this to be fanciful in the extreme. There are elongated
stones amid the broken rock debris, and most of these are not "conveniently arranged" at all. There
are broken stones everywhere, and if one was keen enough one could probably reassemble many of
them. The wear on the edges and flat surfaces of the "railway track" stones is no greater than that on
many other stones scattered amid the scree material. Interestingly, in the 2013 digging season the
railway tracks were removed, and were not mentioned in Prof MPPs Moylgrove lecture.
(d) A "stone hole" near the tip of the Rhosyfelin rocky spur, and excavated into the reddish-brown
"floor" of the 2012 excavation. It is quite a dramatic feature, almost circular, and about 1m across
and 60 cm deep. We have to assume that it is a real feature, and not an "excavation artifice." Did it
at one time hold a standing stone or a massive timber pole? Did it have ritual significance? Or was
it something intended for storing food or other items? Could it have been a burial pit? We have no
way of knowing more about the use of the pit until further information is forthcoming from the
15

archaeologists. However, one feature that


interests me is the occurrence of quite large
angular stones in the sides and on the
bottom of the pit, indicating that the stone
litter at Rhosyfelin does not sit on top of the
"floor" but passes beneath it.
The
significance of this will be discussed in the
following paragraphs.
Also, because of
these stone projections any standing stone or
wooden post set into the hole must have had
a much smaller diameter than the pit itself.
(e) Between the "stone socket" and the
rocky outcrop near the tip of the spur
The socket or stone hole at Rhosyfelin. Note
there is a burnt surface or camping floor
that rock rubble is seen in the base and sides of the
which suggests, according to Prof MPP,
occupation of this site during the Iron Age.
pit, beneath the ground surface.
The archaeologists might well have taken
charcoal or other organic materials for
radiocarbon dating. According to the Brynberian presentations on 18 September 2012, the traces
of occupation tie in with the stone socket, although the evidence underpinning that statement was
not enunciated. No doubt some attention was given to the history of Iron Age occupation during the
2013 and 2014 digging seasons. As I have stated before on my blog, it is not at all surprising that a
site such as this might have been used for many years by hunters and travellers, given that the
location lies in a well wooded river valley suitable for hunting and fishing, close to a point where the
river could easily be forded even at times of high river flow. Also, the gully on the flank of the
Rhosyfelin spur would have afforded protection from wind and rain; and indeed a simple shelter
could have been built against the rock face. We await developments on this matter.
(f) In his talks Professor MPP has referred to ghosts or precise locations in cracks or crevices on
the Rhosyfelin rock face from which recognisable elongated stones in the stone litter have been
taken. I have examined the rock face and see no evidence whatsoever to support this contention
that there has been human interference. One crack towards the tip of the spur has received a great
deal of attention as a monolith source -- but it is far too narrow for any coherent slab of rhyolite to
have been taken from it. (On the other hand, fragments for the making of cutting tools might have
come from this location.)
(g) In his 2013 lecture at Moylgrove, Professor MPP showed a slide of a small vertical stone
embedded in the ground. It looked perfectly natural to a geomorphologist, but he claimed that this
stone and others were deliberately set into the ground as pivots so that bigger stones could be moved
across them by the use of levers. He also claimed that scratches or striations on a smaller transverse
stone just beyond the downslope tip of the big monolith had nothing to do with fractures or foliations,
or with ice action. So he concluded that the scratches must have been made by a big orthostat (or
several) being dragged across it from the inner depths of the quarry, further upslope. However,
examination of this transverse stone shows that the marks are not striations, scratches or erosional
grooves. They are outcropping foliations on the rock surface, no different from those on scores of
other stones to be found throughout the dig site. They follow the strike of these micro- structures.
Examination of the side of the rock shows that the foliations or "pseudo-layers" run within the
rock, downwards towards the bottom left of the photo on the next page.
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The location of the camp site at Rhosyfelin, between the outer end of the rock face and the pit,
which can be seen in the foreground. Was it used by hunters, or tool makers, or monolithic
quarrymen?

Close-up of the "grooves" supposedly caused by


heavy orthostats being dragged across the stone in
question. There are indeed grooves, but they
coincide exactly with the outcropping foliations on
the stone surface. They are perfectly normal
weathering phenomena, of no significance
whatsoever to the quarrying debate.
17

(h) It is now clear that in the forthcoming


Rhosyfelin paper (due in autumn 2015) much
stress will be placed on the fact that the rock
face looks like a quarry face. Well, of course
it looks like a quarry face, because for four
digging seasons the archaeologists have
carefully manufactured it, by cleaning it up and
removing most of the fallen stones and debris
which masked it.
So it is yet another
archaeological artifice.
The steeply-sloping
surface we see today does not coincide with a
single fracture plane; there are in fact multiple
fracture planes, coinciding with the foliations in
the rock, and the micro morphology of the
rock face is controlled by multiple intersecting
fractires in three dimensions. The rock face
owes its origins to rock mechanics, and not to
Neolithic quarrymen.
(i)
One gets the impression from the
archaeologists that there is a clearly defined

surface or quarry floor on which quarrying activities were carried on during the Neolithic. This
floor has a greater clay content than the layers above it, and in has a reddish colour which marks
it out from the buff, brown and black colours of the sediments above it. I am quite convinced
that this floor is y e t a n o t h e r artifice, invented by the archaeologists. As indicated above, it
looks to me like a perfectly typical iron pan or hardpan with gleyed till or boulder clay beneath it.
Many stones, slabs and boulders rest above this hardpan layer; others are beneath it, and others
project through it.

DISCUSSION
This site is fascinating from a geomorphological standpoint because the archaeological dig has
revealed a number of features that can be tied in with the known landscape history of North
Pembrokeshire. There are many coastal exposures of Pleistocene deposits which can be used to
elucidate a complex sequence of events; but there are relatively few inland exposures which reveal a
matching stratigraphy. Indeed, the stratigraphy at Rhosyfelin does not match that of Abermawr (for
example) in great detail. Nonetheless, we know from comparable exposures that slope deposits
incorporating frost-shattered debris take a very long time to accumulate in this environment -- at a
rate of maybe one or two metres per 10,000 years in a periglacial climate. (Much faster rates of
accumulation are found beneath steep cliffs made of friable rocks including shales and mudstones.)
Thus I would be very surprised indeed if all the material accumulated above the "broken rock
apron" at Rhosyfelin had accumulated in a temperate climate over just 5,000 years (basing that date
upon the assumed time of rock quarrying and stone transport to Stonehenge, using the
archaeologists' own chronology.) If such short-term accumulation did occur, where are all the other
deposits from the 15,000 years between 20,000 BP and 5,000 BP?
Another fact that suggests accumulation of these post-glacial layers over a long period of time
(maybe 20,000 years) is the alternation of various layers (or pseudo-layers) of different colours and
textures. It is easiest to explain these by reference to a history of periglacial warming -- namely cold
snap > temporary warming > colder snap > final warming in the Holocene or post-glacial period.
If we seek to explain these changes or oscillations in sedimentation by reference to the very subtle
climatic changes that have occurred over the past five millennia, all sorts of difficulties emerge.
If we assume (for the sake of argument) that the slope deposits that have come from the rising
ground to the NW, W and SW of the dig site had started to accumulate prior to the onset of
quarrying activity, one would expect major disruptions in sedimentation to have occurred, with the
quarrymen using a cleared "floor" which would then have been covered by sediments following the
cessation of quarrying activity. Only those involved in the dig will know whether such a break
or unconformity in sedimentation has been observed; but I suspect, from an examination of all
the photos available from 2011- 2 0 1 4 , that the sediments removed down to the rock surface
beneath the Devensian till had accumulated in an unbroken sequence over a very long period of
time.
My conclusion, from the evidence currently available to me, is that all of the features at Rhosyfelin,
with the possible exception of the "camp site" and the strange pit located nearby, can be explained
by natural processes operating over many thousands of years -- possibly hundreds of thousands
of years. When I look at the broken rock litter, and even at the famous "abandoned orthostat",
I see no signs of quarrying or any other human activity.
18

That having been said, there are a number of interesting features of the site which require further
investigation and discussion. For a start, the camp site near the tip of the spur (near the outer
edge of the slope deposits) seems to have been covered with later sediments up to 50 cm thick; these
must have accumulated in the past 2,500 years or so. Do these sediments match the sediments at
the top of the sequence further upslope, or are they distinguishable in some way? Do these
deposits comprise more sandy, silty and clay-rich material, as might be expected from relatively
recent hillwash processes at the bottom end of a long slope? Hopefully, the site report, when
published, will give guidance on this.
There are two alternative scenarios that might resolve the debate about whether there ever was a
Neolithic quarry at Rhosyfelin. If there was a discrete episode of rock removal, with human beings
levering down slabs of rock from a favourable rocky crag or ridge, we might expect the preNeolithic land surface to pass beneath all of the rock debris. In other words, the "apron" of rock
rubble and slabs -- including the "abandoned orthostat" -- should rest on a discernible surface of till
or other material which might be in contact with a buried part of the rock face. If such an
unconformity does NOT exist, then the likelihood of there ever having been a quarry here is much
reduced. On the other hand, if the rock rubble passes well down beneath the surface exposed in the
2012 excavation, that means that there has been a long history of occasional rockfalls and
continuous debris accumulation along the lines described above. Perhaps, during the course of
the latest dig, an answer will be found to this question.........
We must consider another anomaly. If the "camp site" has been correctly identified and dated to the
Iron Age, that means that the ground surface which we can see in the photos dates from around
2,500 yrs BP. .This surface seems to pass BENEATH the big "abandoned orthostat" which has
caused so much excitement. That means that the orthostat was emplaced later than the Iron
Age, possibly as a result of a spectacular rockfall from one of the higher crags on the rocks ridge.
On the other hand the Neolithic ground surface on which our hypothetical quarrymen worked must
be LOWER in the sequence than the Iron Age surface, making the archaeological "quarrying
hypothesis" even more difficult to accept.
And finally, if there are indeed fragments of rock in the Stonehenge debitage that have come from
Rhosyfelin, is it possible that the site was used for the gathering of rock slabs for tool making
purposes -- for example for the manufacture of cutting implements? I would concede this as a
possibility, since the Rhosyfelin rhyolite does present very sharp edges when split or shaped, like
other rhyolites. So there is a chance that the site was used by hunters for tool-making purposes -and maybe even valued as a source of special stone. That having been said, I remain convinced that
this site was NOT used for the extraction of monoliths intended for Stonehenge or anywhere else.
These notes are provided in a spirit of enquiry, to encourage academic debate and perhaps to feed
into the discussions surrounding the 2013 and 2014 digs. I have provided a working hypothesis
which can be disproved, or else modified dramatically through new discoveries. No working
hypothesis survives for very long, and I anticipate that this one will be no different.
Whatever the outcome of the researches at Rhosyfelin may be, it is certainly a fascinating site.
Whether its ultimate significance is geomorphological or archaeological remains to be seen.
Finally, a couple of pleas to Prof MPP and the other archaeologists. When are we going to see your
seasonal site reports? And when are we going to see the colour of your evidence? With the
completion of four annual digging seasons, we have seen nothing in print or on the web, and
have heard nothing apart from rumours about inconvenient radiocarbon dates. You have made
19

some pretty dramatic claims for Rhosyfelin, but thus far we have not seen any published photos of
the hammerstones, of the flints and flakes which (according to some diggers) have been found, or of
the hard evidence for Iron Age occupation. There are many people who would like to know how
hard your evidence actually is, and who would like to work out for themselves whether this really is
a site worth enthusing about or preserving.

REFERENCES
(1) Stonehenge and the Ice Age
http://brian-mountainman.blogspot.com/
There are also interesting discussions on other sites such as The Megalithic Portal. http://
www.megalithic.co.uk
(2) Ixer, RA and Bevins RE. 2011. Craig Rhos-y-felin, Pont Saeson is the dominant source of
the Stonehenge rhyolitic debitage. Archaeology in Wales 50, 21-31.
Ixer, RA and Bevins RE, with a contribution from Pitts, M. 2013. A re-examination of rhyolitic
bluestone debitage from the Heelstone and other areas within the Stonehenge Landscape. Wilts
Archaeol and Nat Hist Mag, 106 (2013), pp 1-15
Richard E. Bevins, Rob A. Ixer, Peter C. Webb, John S. Watson. 2012. Provenancing the rhyolitic
and dacitic components of the Stonehenge landscape bluestone lithology: new petrographical and
geochemical evidence. Journal of Archaeological Science 39 (2012) 1005e1019
Ixer, R.A and Bevins, R.E. 2013. Chips off the old block: the Stonehenge debitage dilemma.
Archaeology in Wales 52,pp11-22.
(3) Mike Parker Pearson. Stonehenge: exploring the greatest Stone Age Mystery, 2012,
Simon and Schuster, 416 pp
http://brian-mountainman.blogspot.co.uk/2014/08/review-of-mike-parker-pearsons-2012book.html.
(4) Bevins, R E, 1982. Petrology and geochemistry of the Fishguard Volcanic Complex, Wales.
Geological Journal, Vol.17 (1), p.1-21.
Howells, M.F. 2007. British Regional Geology: Wales. British Geological Survey, 230pp
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Didier Bourls, Maurice Arnold, Georges Aumatre, Karim Keddaouche. 2012. The granite tors of
Dartmoor, Southwest England: rapid and recent emergence revealed by Late Pleistocene cosmogenic
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(6) Brian John . 2012. Pembrokeshire Coast Path: Official National Trail Guide. Aurum/Natural
England/CCW, 165 pp.
(7) Mangerud, J.; Ehlers, J.; Gibbard, P., ed. (2004). Quaternary Glaciations : Extent and
Chronology 1: Part I Europe. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 488 pp..
(8) Tooley, MJ and Shennan, I (eds) Sea-Level Changes (Institute of British Geographers Special
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(9) Mangerud, J.; Ehlers, J.; Gibbard, P., ed. (2004). Quaternary Glaciations : Extent and
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Chronology 1: Part I Europe. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 488 pp..


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Candy. Developments in Quaternary Science. Vol. 15, Ch 6, doi: 10.1016/4
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Regions, Longman, 378 pp.
(11) Stonehenges Mysterious Stones, Brian John and Lionel Jackson, Earth Magazine,
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Reviews 45 (2012) 31-53

=====================
Manuscript revised 6th July 2015

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